pre-morse
premorse (pri-MORS) adjective
Having the end abruptly truncated, as if bitten or broken off.
[From Latin praemorsus, from praemordere (to bite in front), from prae-
(before), mordere (to bite). Ultimately from the Indo-European root mer-
(to rub away or to harm) that is also the source of morse, mordant,
amaranth, morbid, mortal, mortgage, and nightmare.]
-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
“As I looked over the water, I saw the isles rapidly wasting away, the
sea nibbling voraciously at the continent, the springing arch of a hill
suddenly interrupted, as at Point Alderton — what botanists might call
premorse, — showing, by its curve against the sky, how much space it
must have occupied, where now was water only.”
Henry David Thoreau; Cape Cod; 1865.
